Psychology- Memory for Unit 1. AS Level. First Year

1. Unit 1

2. Rehearsal
Loop
Decays
Attention
Rehearsal
Sensory Short-Term Long-Term
System Memory Memory
Environmental
Stimulus
Haptic Displacement Interference
 (Forget) (Forget)
Echoic
Iconic
Atkinson & Shiffrin (1968)
Multi-Store Model

3.  The memory stores are different, and therefore
have different qualities.
 Here are some of the qualities that it consists of
 Capacity: How much information it can store
 Duration: How long the information stays in the
store for
 Encoding: The way we store that particular
information
Multi-Store Model

4.  This is where the information gets hold of
 The memory goes in very rapidly
 & it enters the next stage
Multi-Store Model

5.  Duration: Small
 Capacity: Small
 Encoding:
 Haptic: Encodes info through touch
 Iconic: Encodes what you see
 Echoic: Encodes things by sound
Evidence: Sperling (1960). High, medium & low tone
was played. This shows that we cannot control what
enters our sensory memory.
Multi-Store Model

6.  Duration: 2-30 seconds
Peterson & Peterson concluded that info disappears very
rapidly, when rehearsal is prevented
 Capacity: Avg 7±2
Miller believed that 7±2 was average pieces of info for
individuals with the help of Digital Span Technique, which is
where someone will read something in a sequence either by:
Serial Recall: Same order
Free Recall: Any order
 Encoding: Echoic
Conrad concluded that we must convert visual presented
material to an acoustic code
Multi-Store Model

7.  Duration: Unlimited
 Capacity: Unlimited
 Encoding: Mainly semantic (by meaning)
Baddeley 1966
Multi-Store Model

8.  HM had operation to remove parts of the brain in
attempt to control his epileptic fits
IQ above Average, Recall events in early life, Remembers 6 no in order
learn or recall new info, unable to remember 10 years ago
 Clive W suffered a viral infection which attacked his
brain
Learning things by repetition
Unable to store new memories, unable to control emotions
 KF had an motorbike accident that left him brain
damage in the back of his brain
Learn new info, recall stored info
Could only recall 1 item
Multi-Store Model

9.  Case Studies of HM & Clive show how STM
can function relatively normally whilst
retrieval from LTM is impossible
 Free recall test shows STM & LTM functioning
differently
 Laboratory Evidence for duration, capacity *
acoustic encoding
Multi-Store Model

10.  KF could learn new information into LTM even
though his STM was not working
properly, suggesting that there is another route
to the LTM
 Shocking events of memories get stuck in the
LTM without rehearsal
 Many techniques on how to improve memory
without rehearsal
 Miller suggested digital span was 7, although
Baddeley suggest we can remember as many
items as we can
Multi-Store Model

11. Central
Executive
Phonological Loop Visuo-Spatial
Sketchpad
Phonological
Articulatory Process Store
Inner Scribe
Visual
This is a modification of Short-Term Memory Cache
Working Memory Model

12.  Has overall control
 Responsible fro setting targets
 Preventing errors from occurring
 Rehearsing information
 Dividing attention
 Preventing unnecessary information
 Has got 2 slave systems, which have their
own responsibilities & independent
Working Memory Model

13.  Deals with verbal information/speech
 Which places it in the phonological store by processing it
through the articulatory process & then it goes around in a
loop, as rehearsal
 Takes the role in the capacity of the STM
 Holds information you say in 2 seconds
 Independent but rely on each other
 Cannot do so much at once
 If they get overloaded, Central Executive helps in
Working Memory Model

14.  Deals with visual information
 Inner scribe deals with it & also spatial
information, to see where things are in
relation to each other
 Goes through the visual cache & goes into a
loop again
 Independent
Working Memory Model

15. Baddeley 1975:
 Aim: investigate the existence of phonological loop in the STM
 Procedure: participants saw words displayed everyday very
quickly one after another. Then they had to write them down, in
serial order.
 Findings: participants recalled monosyllabic words better than
polysyllabic words.
 Aim: investigate the existence of Visuo-spatial sketchpad in STM
 Procedure: participants had to complete a visual tracking task
the same time as describing angels on a letter
 Findings: they found it hard to complete it both at the same time
 Conclusion: different tasks have different resources
 WWM can easily hold shorter words than longer words
Working Memory Model

16.  Influential model, stimulated research & the
model has been modified to account for new
findings
 Supported by Baddeley’s experiments
 Explains research findings better than the
MSM
 It can account fro individual differences in
memory abilities
Working Memory Model

17.  The central executive, which is the most
important component is the least researched
 The validity of some research findings, where
critics say we assume things instead
 The model does not make it clear how we
deal with information from the smell and
touch sense
Working Memory Model

18.  This is the evidence given by an eyewitness in
a court or to a police officer about a crime or
accident that they have seen themselves.
 Post Events: After the incident
Eyewitness Testimony

19.  Loftus (1979)
 Participants had to sit outside a lab where they
heard a friendly discussion & then saw a man some
out of the room with greasy hands holding a
pen, then they heard a hostile discussion & saw a
man with a blood-stained knife coming out, then
they were asked to identify the man from 50
photos
 They found out that participants who had
witnessed the more violent scene were less
accurate in identifying the man
 They concluded that the heightened anxiety of the
witnesses in the violent scene caused them to
focus on the weapon & not take in other details
Eyewitness Testimony

20.  Yarmey (1984) They showed young & elderly
adults a film of an event & were asked questions
about what they had seen
 They found out that 80% of elderly adults failed to
mention a key detail
 It might not reflect how people react to a real life
situation
Eyewitness Testimony

21.  Loftus & Palmer (1974)
 The way we speak may lead to misleading
information. Where they had to explain a car
crash by either: Bumped, Contacted or
Smashed
 Conclusion: ‘Smashed’ was found to be the
highest speed
 Evaluation: it isn’t always
accurate, unreliable, ethical-harmful
 To prevent distress he had to change the signs
Eyewitness Testimony

22.  Research Design: how you allocate your
participant to each condition of an
experiment
 Open Question: allows participant to give
detailed answers
 Leading Question: may given to unleading
answers, where mislead
Eyewitness Testimony

23.  Main factor was the accuracy of memory for
an event
 Memory can be fragile & disturbing
 People accept misleading info after event &
take it in with the actual info
 False info given, could change the original
memory by removing some things & inserting
others.
 Methodological Issue: participants know
what’s going to happen, whereas in real life it
would appear much shocking
Eyewitness Testimony

24.  Geiselman (1985) developed this technique
 Context Reinstatement (CR): recall the
scene, the weather, thinking & feeling at that
event
 Report Everything (RE): report every detail even
if it seems trivial
 Recall from changed perspective (CP): Putting
yourself in that situation at the scene &
describe it from their point of view
 Recall in Reverse Order (RO): Report detail
back to front
Eyewitness Testimony

25.  Fisher et al (1990)
 Trained real detectives to use enhanced
cognitive interview with real crime
witnesses
 They found out that cognitive interview was
considerably increased the amount of info
recalled compared to standard interview
Eyewitness Testimony

26.  Roles of Organisation
 Mnemonics: techniques which help to improve
memory
 Peg-Word System: uses rhymes
 Method of Loci: Uses places
 Visual Imagery
 Key-Word System: use for remembering vocabulary
 Face-Name System: used to remember names & faces
Eyewitness Testimony

27.  Roles of Organisation: making associations
& links
 Active Processing: process semantically
(makes link with LTM)
 Dual coding hypothesis: explained by
Baddeley & hitch’s WMM
Eyewitness Testimony